


if you try, i will try.

by owlvsdove



Category: Hawkeye (Comics)
Genre: Bisexual Kate Bishop, F/M, Getting Together, House Party, clint is highkey jealous of everyone, kate lowkey wants to sleep with everyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21722815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlvsdove/pseuds/owlvsdove
Summary: “Have you ever noticed that all the Avengers are like, stupidly hot?”
Relationships: Clint Barton/Kate Bishop
Comments: 1
Kudos: 38





	if you try, i will try.

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta-ed af.

“Have you ever noticed that all the Avengers are like, stupidly hot?”

Clint blinks at her. She assumes. She’s not looking at him—they’re slumped on a couch together in the middle of the party floor of Avengers Tower (Tony’s floor, duh), too many drinks in, watching the revelry. 

“What?” he asks pointedly. 

“Ninety-nine percent of the people in this room are genetically, like, good-looking and fit. That’s science,” she explains.

“I’m not sure it is.” Clint sits up a little, sounding a bit more awake, jostling her. Ugh, he smells good. She shifts away a bit. The increased slump makes her skirt ride up a bit, but it feels good. It feels right.

“Why is everyone so hot,” she mutters to herself. “Do we not allow ugly people here? That doesn’t seem very Captain America.”

“Kate,” Clint says slowly. Actually, he sounds a lot more awake—a lot more sober—than he did before, so she tears her eyes away from the hotness buffet. “ _I_ don’t think every Avenger is hot.”

“That’s because you have no taste,” Kate argues. 

“Like half my exes are Avengers,” he argues back. 

“Point Barton.”

“I’m just saying, sounds like a _you_ problem.”

“You’re no help, Clint.”

He looks anxious suddenly. “How were you expecting me to help?”

“I wasn’t,” she says easily. “I’m going to go see who here will make out with me.”

“Wait, what?” she hears behind her, but she’s already ambling out of her seat. 

“Who here will make out with me?”

Natasha, fixing herself a concoction behind the bar, raises an eyebrow. “You mean besides Barton?”

“Clint’s the least likely to make out with me. Yes, besides him.”

“Hmm,” Natasha ponders as she pours her drink. “Male or female?”

“Everyone’s so hot, Nat, I literally don’t care.” She knows she’s starting to whine, but she can’t help it. She’s drunk, she’s horny, no one has a crush on her like they’re supposed to. It’s frustrating. “I want to turn this regular party into a party where people kiss Kate.”

Nat smirks. Sets down her glass. And then she starts to lean over the bar slowly, and Kate finds herself leaning in too, and Natasha’s hand cups the back of her neck to pull her even closer, and—

“Alright, cut it out.”

Nat’s eyes flicker up. Her smirk grows. “You might want to rethink your least likely.” 

Natasha lets her go, and Kate leans back on her stool and hits solid muscle. His stupid cologne engulfs her again. She looks back at him, frowning. “That was rude.”

He ignores her — he and Natasha are having some sort of silent conversation, communicated only by brow furrows and lip quirks. 

“Who’s your pick, Nat?” Kate says, trying to get her mission back on track. 

Natasha shrugs. “Bucky’s a good kisser.”

A strangled noise escapes Clint’s throat.

“Huh.” Sounds good to Kate. She makes to move off the barstool but Clint is still crowding her. She prods at his chest. “Clinton. Vamoose.”

“Maybe it’s time to get you home,” he says. 

She snorts. “ _You_ can go home.” She pushes past Clint finally and tosses over her shoulder, “I’ll be sleeping here tonight.”

Natasha cackles. Kate grins. 

“James.” 

She taps him twice primly on the shoulder. Bucky turns away from Sam and Steve, leaving them to their conversation. He smirks at her. “Katherine.”

It’s good they have something of a history; it makes this easier. Of course, not _that_ kind of history. But still. He’s hot, and theoretically he’s aware that she has the capacity to be hot as well. 

“We’ve put up with each other for quite some time now, would you agree?”

“I would.”

“Still, I feel like I deserve some sort of reward for being so kind and understanding towards you.”

His grin grows wider. “Is that so?”

“It is indeed.”

“Alright, name your prize.”

Kate feels victory rising in her chest. “I want a kiss.”

He looks surprised, but not thrown off. “A kiss from me is a prize?”

“Tonight it is,” she says honestly. She steps closer to him.

“You’re a little keyed up?” he guesses.

“Could use a distraction,” she confirms.

“I’m honored to have been chosen.”

“To be honest,” Kate says. “I tried Nat first, but Clint got mad because I tried to kiss his ex or something.”

Something like understanding dawns on his face. He does his level best to hide it, but she sees it anyway. “Makes sense,” he says.

“So? You want to be a hero tonight?”

He leans heavily against the wall. “You’re killing me, Kate.” But the way he sighs after he says it smacks of rejection. Fuck. 

“I have a feeling,” he continues. “That Clint’s gonna break up the party no matter who you ask. You know why?”

“Because he’s a dumbass?”

“Well. Yes. But—I mean—you like him, don’t you?”

Kate blinks. She thinks about lying, starts to plan her lie even, but her mouth says, “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, I think he feels the same way.”

“Bucky,” she says urgently, suddenly feeling horribly guilty. Her hand goes to his wrist. “I promise I didn’t come over here to make him jealous. That’s not why I went to Nat either.”

“I know, Kate.”

“Do you?”

He’s still smiling. “I do. I really do.”

She sighs heavily, relieved. She really hadn’t. She’d gotten used to thinking about Clint as a foregone conclusion. 

But apparently—according to Bucky and Nat—he’s not. 

“I don’t expect him to— _he’s_ the one that won’t—” she tries to explain. “Literally the way he asked me to be his partner was by telling me he didn’t want to sleep with me.”

Bucky looks somewhat alarmed at that. “Does Steve know that? That’s wild.”

“Not to mention a total lie. I mean, look at me?”

He does. At least someone appreciates her hotness.

Bucky placates her: “You’re very beautiful, Kate.”

“I’m hot enough to be an Avenger,” she says. He laughs loudly. “Have you ever noticed that almost all the Avengers are ridiculously attractive?”

He laughs again. He looks good laughing. He should do it more often. “I think that’s just you, Kate.”

“Damn it.”

“Anyway, as much as I’d like to help you with your quest, it might not be the best idea,” he says. 

She slumps against the wall. “This sucks. At this rate I’ll never have sex again.”

Bucky laughs at her, but he soothes the sting by wrapping his arms around her. “Here,” he says. “Come talk to us for a bit while you build up the courage.” He starts to tow her back to where Steve and Sam are talking. 

“Build up the courage to do what?” she asks. 

He gives her a look. 

Fuck.

They way she sees it, she has the length of the cab ride from midtown to Bed-Stuy to convince him. 

It’s four A.M. on a Thursday, so it should be quicker than usual—maybe thirty minutes. She should be glad he’s willing to cab it. She appreciates the subway as much as the next person; but Clint says taking the train in the middle of the night always makes him sad, looking at all the bone-tired people counting down the seconds to the next stop. 

She steps off the pavement into the street and holds out her hand. She can see her breath in front of her. The wool of her peacoat brushes against her thighs where her skirt ends, itching and scratching as she shifts in impatience. 

She doesn’t look back at him. She can tell that Clint had wanted to make a comment about her not staying the night at the tower after all, but didn’t have the heart to. 

Smart man. 

A cab pulls in smoothly then and she opens the door for him. She’s trained him well at this point—no lady in a skirt should have to slide across a cab bench. Once he’s in, he looks at her. Tense around the eyes like he’s not sure if she’s gonna climb in after him. 

God, she loves him. 

She climbs in gingerly, slams the door, gives the address. They sit in uncomfortable silence, save for the stupid Taxi TV and the whoosh of other cars passing them, until they’re halfway through the tunnel to Queens before she can’t take it anymore. 

“Okay, listen,” Kate says, shifting against the seat belt to face him. “I know you’re attracted to me, and you know I’m attracted to you. But _also_ , even more importantly, I know you love me. And I love you. So what the hell are we doing?”

He stares at her, stupid corn-boy eyes wide. 

It works though, just coming right out and saying it, because he’s startled into answering: “Katie—I’m afraid.”

“That’s dumb.”

He snorts, bewildered.

“What’s the alternative, Clint? Chasing off everyone I try to sleep with until I’m a little old lady and you’re practically senile?” she continues. “Guess what? You’re an Avenger. Your job is to be brave when you’re afraid.”

“Kate,” he breathes. “You’re perfect, but I—”

“For you,” she cuts him off. “I’m perfect for you. That’s why you’re so scared. You’re the one who got married after knowing Bobbi for what, all of a week? You think the guy who burns his hand the same way on the coffee pot _every fucking morning_ is once bitten, twice shy? Hell no. You don’t have a cautious bone in your body, except for when it’s about me. Because you know, deep down, that this could be it. Life sentence.”

Whoa. Kate blinks. This is getting a touch more intense than she had planned, but. 

It’s not like what she’s saying isn’t true. 

Clint opens his mouth, but she cuts him off again. “And don’t say I’m drunk, because I’m really not. And neither are you—I swear to god, Barton, if you go to sleep tonight and the next morning pretend like you can’t remember this conversation, I will take the dog and move somewhere so much further than California, okay? Gamora owes me a favor.”

She stops, finally, breathing hard. The only way to gauge his expression is by the streetlights flickering into the backseat as their cab speeds by. It’s like stop motion, watching his face. Blank surprise. Then awe. Then a small smile. Then a bigger one. His hand finds the back of her neck, not unlike Nat’s did. 

“Don’t go to space,” he says. And then his lips are on hers. 

Later, with his head resting on her stomach and her hand playing with his hair, he speaks up again. “I can’t believe you went all _big speech at the end of a romcom_ on me.”

She grins, too pleased with the result to be bothered. “Had to be done.”


End file.
